LIBRARY OF CONGRESS M ] 

020 272 667 7' 



DT 652 
.K8 
Copy 1 




BRIEF OF HENRY I. KOWALSKY, 

OF THE NEW YORK BAR. 



MARCH, 1905. 




BRIEF OF HENRY I. KOWALSKY, OF 

n 

THE NEW YORK BAR, ATTORNEY AND 
COUNSELLOR TO LEOPOLD IL, KING OF 
THE BELGIANS AND SOVEREIGN OF 
THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF THE 
CONGO, IN MATTERS TOUCHING HIS 
RIGHTS AND POSSESSIONS ABROAD, IN 
REPLY TO MEMORIAL PRESENTED TO 
THE PRESIDENT ' OF THE UNITED 
STATES OF AMERICA CONCERNING 
AFFAIRS IN THE CONGO STATE BY 
THE CONGO REFORM ASSOCIATION, 
SUPPORTED BY THE BRITISH AND FOR- 
EIGN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY AND THE 
ABORIGINES' PROTECTION SOCIETY. 

MARCH, 1905. 



ANSWER TO MEMORIAL. 

rl 

* Mr. President: 

I As the legal representative of the Belgian 

^. Government in matters touching their rights and possessions 

TV^broad, I beg leave to respectfully submit the following in answer 

^ to the Memorial heretofore presented concerning affairs in the 

Congo State, by the Congo Reform Association, supported by the 

British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and the Aborigines' 

Protection Society: 

INTRODUCTION. 

I have intentionally delayed presenting my views in this mat- 
ter, well knowing that at the time it was brought to your notice, 
you, as the representative of a great political party, were then 
before the nation for its consideration. I was also aware that 
Congress was very soon thereafter convened and has been occupy- 
ing the Executive attention ever since. 

Now that Congress is closed and the Inaugural ceremonies are 
over and the congested conditions which have consumed your every 
moment are in a degree relaxed, I feel that even now I am in a 
way trespassing upon your valuable time. My partial excuse 
is found in the knowledge that you are untiring in your energy in 
seeking the right that I venture my humble opinion, based upon 
the history of the past and the hopes of the future of my clients, 
whose righteous cause and the justice of their attitude rather in- 
clines them to come before you to be heard than to demur to what 
might be the jurisdiction of the Forum, and as it is not intended 
to impose upon you the legal side of the contest, we know that 
with the equities submitted, your sound judgment will meet with 
due consideration, and, we trust, justification. 

My clients are weak in arms but are strong in tlieir battle 
for human progress, and, knowing that the personnel of this gov- 
ernment is in favor of the weak when right, as against the strong 
when wrong, this nation under its present Executive has never 
feared to administer a rebuke where it is deserved, nor bestowed 
praise where it belongs. The Congo Free State has at no time 
in the past called upon any other nation to aid it in suppressing 



the native warrior, and now that he is suppressed, it does not desire 
to divide its revenues with its envious and covetous neighbors. 
There are nations that are much given to holding and conducting 
colonial governments, some acquired peaceably, some as the result 
of contest and conquest, and other methods. It has been said, 
and the statement has not been contradicted with any force, that 
it is an old method that some nations have of first sending their 
missionaries into a country, then their merchants, and finally their 
army. We have had a few missionaries from this nation, a few 
merchants, but we hope to progress without any of their army. 
In fact, the nations of the world would not stand by and see a 
nation whose righteous conduct has proclaimed it worthy of gov- 
erning, interfered with or even unjustly criticised. 

The Congo government has a high and mighty purpose, born 
in the brain and heart of its sovereign. With its legend and motto 
"Work and Labor," carried into practical effect, tremendous re- 
sults in the interest of this people and the higher civilization are 
being daily realized. 

The Sovereign of the Congo Free State is not an ordinary 
monarch, and, though the Belgic possessions are small, their king 
is a man of intellectual distinction and thoroughly modern in his 
ideas. Like his father, the first King of the Belgians, he has done 
more for humanity in a shorter space of time and more effect- 
ively than any other monarch existing. He took up the sentiment 
that his father expressed when he became king of the Belgians, 
to-wit: "Human destiny does not offer a more useful task than 
that to be called to found the independence of a nation and to con- 
solidate its liberties.*' Leopold II.'s task is an hundredfold greater 
than that of his sires, who amalgamated a nation of two different 
peoples speaking a different and divergent language, one the Wal- 
loons and the other the Flemish, which he left as a heritage to his 
son in a united and happy, as well as prosperous condition, and 
when I view the attacks of the critics and the carpers upon the 
government of the Congo and its sovereign, they seem to me like 
a small child casting a pebble into the great ocean with its childish 
thought that it may dam up the whole sea. 



It may be interesting to know, Mr. President, that if the 
present King of the Belgians had been born of his father's first 
wife, the beautiful Princess Charlotte, the only daughter of George 
IV of England, Leopold to-day would be the reigning King of 
England, but she died simultaneously with the birth of her child, 
and the widower, who was then the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, whose 
greatness in the fore part of the nineteenth century was recognized 
by the powers of the world, and who was tendered the crown of 
Greece, which he refused, was then made King of the Belgians 
and accepted the mighty and illustrious position because he felt an 
especial sympathy withi the people he was to govern. 

The mother of King Leopold II was the Princess Louise, 
the eldest daughter of King Louis Phillipe of France, whose reign, 
if it had not been interfered with, would have made the present 
King of Belgium the King of France, so that it may be said that 
the sovereign of the Congo is great of heritage, greater by reason 
of his big heart and brain and broad conception of the rights of 
humanity. So it follows that if he had not progressed in doing 
that which he has done, the uplifting of thirty millions of people, 
the most heroic act of the age, he would have been a disappointing 
character in history. He has fulfilled much beyond what the 
fondest ambition of man could conceive of. Such a sovereigpn, 
such a monarch, stands out of the reach and beyond the assault 
of the vicious traducers and the snarling, angry wolves who, 
cloaked in the name of humanity and veiled under the guise of re- 
ligion, are rather serving Satan and Mammon, who spend their 
lives finding fault and making mischief and end ignominious fail- 
ures, while the honest man, who has a general purpose that con- 
serves the right of his fellow man and aids the world to a higher 
and better condition goes on to be illumined here and hereafter. 

The Memorial referred to is, to say the least, a most remark- 
able document. It seeks to induce the President of the United 
States, upon mere hearsay testimony and shadowy allusions, to 
interfere in the internal affairs of a State whose autonomy has been 
recognized by the civilized nations of the globe. 



6 

The atrocities committed in Russia, the sufferings of the 
Armenian Christians, the Macedonian uprisings, the general situ- 
ation in the Balkans, and, in fact, all the crimes that have been 
committed, both in this country and elsewhere are for the nonce 
forgotten, and all that is left for the Memorialists to sigh and 
grieve over are the facts that Leopold and his subordinates have 
compelled Congolese negroes to obey the biblical injunction of 
earning their bread, and by wise laws have attempted to preserve 
for posterity the natural resources of the Congo Basin. 

Industry has ever been the watchword of civilization, and this 
applies with particular force to savage and barbarous peoples. By 
keeping this truism in mind, one will be able to understand the 
colossal work of bringing into subjection and order thirty millions 
of savage Congolese natives. These natives were steeped in the 
horrors of cannibalism and afflicted with the idea that prowess was 
best displayed by maiming their prisoners of war, much as the 
Indians of our plains used to do when they exhibited the scalps 
of their victims as their proudest trophies. Among such a people 
industry is regarded with contempt, and to overcome these racial 
prejudices it is necessary not only to rule with a firm hand, but 
also so to conduct the affairs of government as not to, without sub- 
stantial reasons, offend against native prejudices and tribal 
customs. 

RISE OF THE FREE STATE. 

Perhaps nothing will give more satisfaction to the real friends 
of negro civilization than the ringing words of your Lincoln's 
anniversary address, delivered before the Ne\V York Republican 
Club on the 13th of February, 1905. Lincoln, it may be said, be- 
fore any man who ever lived, stood for the open door of oppor- 
tunity to the downtrodden and oppressed. He gave to the cause 
not lip but heart service, and his memory will be honored and 
revered as long as men rise above selfishness and greed and regard 
with consideration the sufferings of mankind. The kernel of the 
whole situation is contained in your remarks, and the solution of 
the African problem will be reached when the negro is impressed 
with the truth of your statements that 



"Laziness and shiftlessness ; these, and above all, vice and criminality 
of every kind, are evils more potent of harm to the black race than all acts 
of oppression of white men put together. * * * If the standards of 
private morality and industrial efficiency can be raised high enough among 
the black race, then its future on this continent is secure." 

Dreamers and academic publicists may prate of humanity, 
but the wise man and practical ruler understands that a strong rein 
is necessary to hold in check the propensities of a savage people. 

Though the history of the Congo is but of yesterday, it pre- 
sents a striking example of Belgian enterprise and devotion to prin- 
ciple. The conquests of Spain and of England have indeed 
astounded the world, but when Leopold has passed to the great 
beyond and the story is told of his life-work, it shall be said of him, 
as it has been said of few monarchs, that he entered upon the work 
of conquest not for glory, not for self-aggrandizement, but for 
the benefit of the benighted savages who peopled the Congo and in 
order to rescue them from the dreadful tyranny of Arab slave- 
traders and the atrocities consequent upon their tribal wars and 
fetich worship. 

STANLEY ENTERS THE CONGO BASIN. 

When the great Stanley entered the Congo Basin, in 1872, it 
was through the philanthropy of the press. When he returned 
and laid the foundation of the Congo Free State, it was through 
the beneficence of Leopold II., whose private purse was used with- 
out stint in behalf of the enterprise, and who pledged himself 
that whatever others might do, he stood for the principle that the 
light of religion and civilization should shine resplendent even in 
the darkest confines of the African forest. And now, to-day, when 
the busy hum of industry is heard even beyond Stanley Pool, when 
the emblem of salvation has been erected and is fast being under- 
stood by the natives, when the hopes of the monarch who has 
labored and toiled, even during the heat of the day, are about to be 
consummated, and when his cup of happiness is filled to the brim, 
there are found disciples of the carpenter of Nazareth, whose 
mission on earth was good will, and whose chief admonition 
was to speak no ill of one's brother, eager in the work of dashing 



8 

the cup from his lips and heaping obloquy and contumely upon 
his venerable and venerated head. Venerated, I say, not because 
of his kingship, not because of any royalty which attaches to him, 
but because he has suffered and overcome, because he has gone to 
the farthest end of the earth and risked his private fortune in an 
enterprise which is a jewel in the crown of Christian endeavor, 
and further, that he has done this with humility and in order that 
it might be said of him when his life-work was done and he was 
free alike from calumny and praise, "Well done, thou good and 
faithful servant ; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will 
make thee lord over many." 

LEOPOLD'S AID TO STANLEY. 

Wlien the cry went out from Stanley that there were thirty 
millions of negroes burning to be rescued from the Nile Arabs, 
Leopold alone came to the relief of this intrepid explorer and 
enabled him to crown with glory a life whose noblest achievement 
was the work he did in behalf of African development. How 
comes it, then, that the work of the friends of Africa is followed 
by denunciation and calumny? To this question there can be but 
one answer, "Thrift." Cupidity has taken possession of many 
souls and wherever cupidity abounds, there will be found its faith- 
ful and devoted servitors. This phenomenon appears to be inbred 
in the nature of man. Perhaps it is the work of the serpent. 
Whatever the cause, it is a factor which must be taken notice of, 
and I shall proceed in my poor way to demolish this house of cards 
erected by the enemies of the Congo State, whose gospel is that 
of the soil rather than that of the soul. 
CHARGES: 

The chief charges against the Congo government are : 

1st. That it has been cruel and inhuman in its treatment 
of the natives. 

2d. That it has declared all unoccupied lands to be a part of 
the public domain, and 

3d. That it has imposed up<&n the natives the obligation to 
work. 

That it is a great deal easier to criticise than to construct has 
long been recognized as a self-evident proposition. This truism, 



however, seems to have been lost sight of by our amiable oppo- 
nents, and for that reason I desire to commend to them a careful 
reading of the words of J. M. Gibson, who says : 

"The critical faculty has its value in correcting errors, reforming abuses, 
and demolishing superstitions. But the constructive faculty is much nobler 
in itself, and immeasurably more value in its results, for the obvious reason 
that it is a much nobler and better thing to build up than to pull down. It 
requires skill and labor to erect a building, but any idle tramp can burn it 
down. Only God can form and paint a flower, but any foolish child can 
pull it to pieces." 

It may be said of Leopold that he is essentially a constructive 
statesman and not an academic dreamer. That while his enemies 
have been indulging in diatribes against his administration of the 
governmental affairs of the Congo he has had an eye single to the 
building up of a great state. Firmly convinced of the rectitude 
of his intentions, he has pursued his policy for good unswervingly, 
and he may rest assured that long after the names of his detractors 
have been lost in oblivion and their works forgotten, he will be re- 
membered as the great benefactor of the African race. 

PENAL LAWS. 

The penal laws of the Congo State are justly and zealously 
maintained. The white man, by reason of his superior education, 
is generally impressed more emphatically with the necessity of 
the law of obedience than it is possible to impress this law upon 
the native, but there is no opportunity that is not seized upon by 
the officials and the educators to bring the native to an under- 
standing of the necessity of being law-abiding. A well organized 
police protects the country in every direction. Magistrates and 
judges are performing their duties under prescribed law. The 
prisons and the punishments meted out to offenders are upon the 
highest plane of human justice, and yet the political critic, when 
referring to the incidents which occur in the Congo, holds up to 
public view the individual act of every native; in fact, there is a 
constant and continuous espionage going on by the Liverpool 
Association to find, under any pretext, something that they believe 
may arrest the attention of the outside world and create a sensa- 



10 

tion and thereby bring about the condemnation of the Congo gov- 
ernment by reason of the act of some individual malefactor. In 
other words, the wrongdoing or crime of the individual is at- 
tributed to the government, or it is charged to have been done 
under the government's direction, or through or by the instrumen- 
tality of some government official, and in order to give publicity 
and to exploit whatever may happen in the natural course of 
events in the Congo, this political association of Liverpool carries 
on at a great expense a newspaper, under the editorial direction 
of the special censor and critic, Morel. The paper is entitled 
"The West African Mail." It would be more explanatory and less 
delusive to the public if the word "Black" were printed between 
the third and fourth words of its title. 

BECK CASE. 

We may well wonder what this Liverpool Association and its 
sensitive members would have said, or how they would have cried 
aloud in unholy terms against the Congo, if the Alfred Beck 
episode had taken place in the Congo. And yet it is a notorious 
fact that Beck, this tortured of men, innocent as a child, yet to 
be born of the crime with which he was charged, served four years 
at hard labor in a government prison in England ; and, after serv- 
ing his term, was again arrested and convicted and again sen- 
tenced to imprisonment, all in sight of the Liverpool Association 
for the correction of wrongs in other people's government, all in 
a land of advanced civilization, far beyond the Congo in its gra- 
tuitous advice and willingness to correct its neighbors' alleged 
wrong-doings. With all the boasted civilization that permeates 
England, it is that country's shame that it has existed and does 
still exist without a Court of Appeals in criminal cases. Let the 
English people turn their eyes to the much-criticised Congo and 
there they will find an advance in the interest of a higher class of 
justice, an advanced judicial system there existing, one worthy of 
the emulation of the British government. Justice in the Congo 
Free State is dealt even-handed and alike to all, and is in concert 
with the most advanced nations and in common with every other 



II 

form of human justice. Of course, it is neither infallible nor free 
from imperfections. It is the same system which has been applied 
to white men for centuries, and is now being exercised in the in- 
terest of suppressing crime among the natives. The government 
of the Congo has given exceptional pledges of firmness and im- 
partiality, and these pledges have been well maintained. And so, 
to revert to the Beck case, if Beck had been tried even in the 
wilds of the jungle or on the banks of the Congo, or, in fact, in 
any part of its territory, he could have proved his innocence to 
fair-minded judges, who would have heard him on appeal, and he 
would not have suffered the destruction of his manhood by incar- 
ceration in a penal institution almost within sight of the Liverpool 
Reform Association. If Florence Maybrick had likewise been 
put to trial in the Congo, she would not have suffered fifteen years' 
imprisonment for a crime that most of her countrymen believe she 
was not guilty of. 

U. S. PENAL STATISTICS. 

Mr. President, you are a lawyer of attainments and a states- 
man who has reached the highest place in the gift of his country, 
and it would be but a waste of your valuable time to even attempt 
to argue that our own government, like other well-meaning gov- 
ernments, is constantly exerting the best moral influence possible 
over its people in order to avoid crime and wrong-doing. We 
have surrounded ourselves with the very best condition of higher 
education, thousands of churches and Sunday schools, great and 
gracious ministers of the gospel, the surrounding of the family 
with a pure home life, constantly legislating in our National De- 
partment, in our respective State Legislatures and in the Municipal 
boards of control, such laws as shall minister to the welfare of 
the people, all with the hope of keeping our citizens upright and 
industrious, and yet, with all these great instruments at our hand, 
we are compelled, nevertheless, to maintain in the respective state 
prisons of the United States nearly 100,000 felons. The man 
who would say, or the association that would declare that the 
government was responsible for each individual act of the criminal 



12 

would be denounced as an idiot, yet when you analyze all the 
charges of the Liverpool Association, when you hear its members 
exclaim against the Congo, they make every individual act of the 
criminal the act of the government, or they attribute to the gov- 
ernment responsibility therefor. 

NEGRO CRIMINALS. 

A fact that is important in connection with the unjust crit- 
icism of this new State can in a way be deduced from the fact that 
here in the United States the negro is about one-sixth of the entire 
population, and it is strange to say that, though the negroes have 
had civilizing influences about them ever since this government 
came into existence, nearly twenty-five per cent, of the prisoners 
in penal institutions are black men. If the penal institutions of 
this country have been kept so busy with the American negro, what 
ought to be expected of the negro of the Congo? And yet there 
is no such proportion of criminal life in the Congo as the records 
disclose either in England or America. 

LONDON VICE. 

Strange as it may seem, the virtue of the native women com- 
pares favorably with many of the older nations. The Liverpool 
Association and its desire (if honest) to reform humanity might 
avoid criticism and be the recipient of great praise and gratitude 
if it opened its eyes to the unfortunate and needy white sufferers 
and coreligionists, as well as fellow countrymen, who are under 
its immediate eye, and lend them a helping hand and rescue them 
from their immoral and physical condition. There is nothing 
more abhorent to an American visiting London than to find that 
vice is rampant in the very heart of the city of London, Picadilly, 
Trafalgar Square, the Strand — yes, under the very chimes of St. 
Paul and but a few squares from Buckingham Palace, circling 
back to the House of Parliament — there nightly, as one night fol- 
lows the other, are thousands and thousands of young English 
women, unbridled in their shame, plying their nefarious and im- 
moral trade. This is not of to-day, but has existed for years and 



13 

years, and will continue, unless a more intense humanity can 
be infused into the Liverpool Association, whose true object is 
political confiscation of the rights of others, expressed by a hypo- 
critical and pretended interest in the sufferings of the Congo negro 
rather than an interest in their own country women. The profit 
of rubber and ivory seems to be the thinly- veiled ambition of those 
who are the head and front, as well as the heart and soul, of the 
Liverpool Reform Association. This Association recalls the na- 
ture of the ostrich, who, when it hides its head in the sand 
feels that it is not seen because it does not see. Individuals, as 
well as communities, would indeed be blind if they did not see the 
real purpose of the Liverpool organization and understand its 
motives. The pretense of this organization that it has no ambition 
beyond that of humanity recalls the character of those persons 
who always hide their ambitions beneath an affected humility, 
filling their speeches with quotations from the Bible and with 
mythical effusions, even accompanied by tears, in proclaiming that 
whatever they do on behalf of the State is as an obedient colleague 
in the service of the people. The ambitious in all ages, whose de- 
sire has been to acquire the end sought for by this Liverpool As- 
sociation, have always had their pamphleteers and their reptiles 
who slander and sting their adversaries and assimilate their pro- 
jects. It is an old saying that the man who proposes to confiscate 
liberty, vaunts and declares himself ready to combat despotism. 

ACTS OF CRUELTY. 

As to the charges of cruelty, which include the charges of 
maimed limbs and other atrocities, committed by regular and 
irregular troops, these are based mainly upon the testimony of 
such publicists as Mr. E. D. Morel, whose devotion to the interests 
of the Liverpool Association has carried him away to such an 
extent that he did not hesitate to attempt to debauch Mr. Bene- 
detti, an agent of the Congo Free State, paying him money and 
offering him more if he would only furnish information, true or 
false, which would reflect upon the government of the Congo. 
This transaction is vouched for, and the whole pitiable story is set 



14 

forth in an article published in the Independence Beige of Decem- 
ber 1st, 1904. It must further be remembered that Mr. Morel 
was apparently assisted in this nefarious business by Mr. John 
Holt, merchant, of Liverpool, Vice-President of the Liverpool 
Chamber of Commerce and a founding member of the Congo 
Reform Association. To readers of history, and especially to 
those who remember the African slave trade and its attendant 
horrors, it will appear significant that the most bitter and im- 
placable enemy of the Congo government, namely, the pseudo 
publicist, Mr. E. D. Morel, should have the support and sympathy 
of the Vice-President of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce. 
History appears to be repeating itself. It was the Liverpool mer- 
chants who rallied to the danger cry of the African slave traders, 
when Wilberforce and his associates began their attack upon this 
institution. From Liverpool went forth the specially constructed 
prison ships freighted with shackles with which to bind the cap- 
tive African, and Bibles with which to convert him. It was in 
Liverpool that the last stand for African slave trade was made, 
and strange to say, Liverpool is the home and furnishes the inspira- 
tion to the societies whose avowed purpose is opposition to and 
condemnation of King Leopold's reign over the Congo Free State, 
a reign that has resulted in the manumission of millions of negroes 
and their physical and moral betterment. 

MOREL'S ATTACKS. 

Mr. Morel's literary style is almost as execrable as his facts. 
What he lacks in information he makes up in denunciation. From 
the title page to finis carping criticism and unlimited condemnation 
abound. Mr. Morel's style is a recrudescence of the style of the 
political pamphleteer, who flourished during the reign of Anne 
and the first George. Happily for us, this sort of work is no 
longer regarded as literature, and seldom does it appear except to 
bolster up some special interest. It has been said, and with ap- 
parent truth, that if special interests were opposed to the law of 
gravitation, literary pirates would be found fulminating against the 
theory, and this perhaps accounts for the misguided pen of Mr. 



15 

Morel. England for centuries, both by her public men and gov- 
ernmental acts, has time and time again proclaimed to an admiring 
world the glad tidings that she alone was fitted by divine provi- 
dence to carry on the work of colonization. The success of the 
Belgians in the Congo Basin is a confutation of that idea and 
the English merchant, ever jealous of inroads made upon his 
business and traditionally possessed of the idea that to him belongs 
the earth and the fullness thereof, views with alarm the supremacy 
of Belgian interests in the Congo and would be well pleased if the 
powers signatory to the Berlin Conference, or failing in that, the 
government of the United States, would take such action as would 
result in disturbances in the Congo, thereby justifying active 
interference in the affairs of that State and eventually permitting 
England to rehabilitate and act upon the idea that she alone of all 
the governments of the earth is the natural protector of the down- 
trodden and the oppressed. I venture to say no unbiased person 
can rise from a reading of Morel's book without being convinced 
that he holds a brief for some interest inimical to the government 
of the Congo as at present instituted and that his personal and 
undignified reflections upon King Leopold are founded upon com- 
mercialism and are born of a desire to further the commercial 
interests of the country in which the societies signatory to this 
memorial have their habitat. Without ever having set foot in 
the country he is describing and whose institutions he is attack- 
ing, with slovenly disregard for the sources of information which 
are open to him in common with all other writers, he presents as a 
basis for his attack and as a foundation for his grossly exaggerated 
condemnation, the warmed-over statements of a few disgruntled 
missionaries and the charges of men who have been refused con- 
cessions for privileges no self-respecting government would grant. 
In indulging in his strictures on the Congo government, Mr. Morel 
might have remembered what every tyro in governmental affairs 
is conscious of, that one of the greatest difficulties a government 
has in administrating the affairs of a colony inhabited by bar- 
barous natives is to restrain the native chiefs and other natives 
in authority from preying upon their fellows, and whatever atro- 



i6 

cities have been committed under the flag of the Congo Free State 
have been due to these barbarous propensities and have never 
received the countenance or sanction of either King Leopold or 
the government of which he is the honored sovereign. While 
the critics in behalf of the enemies lof good government in the 
Congo may excite the feelings of those who always take a long 
range view of inhumanities and who, indifferent to the vice and 
misery which surround them at home, are keenly alive to the 
shortcomings of the people of other nations, they can have no 
other effect upon the judicious than to make them grieve. We 
say "Farewell" to Mr. Morel with the statement that to all those 
who have intelligently investigated the conditions in the Conga 
Basin his work reads like the tale of a paid carper full of sound 
and fury signifying nothing. 

MR. FOX BOURNE'S ANSWER. 

Another critic who has consecrated his literary talents to the 
enemies of Leopold is Mr. Fox Bourne. Truth compels us to 
say, however, that he is a mere zealot, the leading spirit of one of 
the memorialists, the Aborigines' Protection Society, and one who 
has belabored, in and out of season, every nation which has fur- 
thered the hope of doing something towards encouraging peace 
and the arts of civilization among savage peoples. The same 
charges which Mr. Fox Bourne and his society make against the 
Congo government they have made with equal venom against the 
British in the Transvaal and Rhodesia, charging that government 
with pursuing a policy of exploitation against the natives and 
administering the affairs of these countries with an eye signal to 
its own profit and in utter disregard of the rules of morality and 
the canons which civilized nations should observe in their treatment 
of the weak and helpless people of the earth. 

It is not to be supposed that within the limits of this article 
I should be able to answer all the charges, both true and false, 
which have been leveled against the Congo government. The 
breed of its detractors is largely British. Volumes have been 



written upon the subject, have found a resting place upon the 
stalls of the book-sellers, and, after a short lease of life, have fol- 
lowed the works of many of their Grub Street predecessors and 
have been utilized in the not very literary, but extremely utilitarian 
business of making trunks. 

CAPT. GUY BURROWS' LIBEL. 

It may be said, however, in passing, that one of the shining 
lights of Congo detraction is a certain Captain Guy Burrows, 
sometime captain in his Britannic Majesty's service and erst- 
while employee of the Congo government engaged in service in 
the Congo Basin. After a short term in the Congo, Captain Bur- 
rows, for reasons which we may, in charity, assume to have been 
honorable, tired of the service and returned to Europe, and, after 
a little sparring with the European representatives of the Congo 
government with a view of re-engaging himself in its service at 
advanced compensation, having in mind the lamentations of Job, 
but disregarding the philosophy thereof, proceeded to deliver 
himself of a book. Thrift, however, was the guiding star of 
Captain Burrows' literary bark, and, after looking over the proof 
sheets and finding them well loaded with calumny, falsehood and 
detraction, he conceived the brilliant, if not very author-like idea 
of blackmailing the Congo government, and sent post-haste the 
proof sheets of his magnum opus, calling attention to some choice 
bits of libelous matter contained therein, to the European repre- 
sentatives of the Congo government, accompanying it with the 
proposition to sell to them the European rights of publication. 
The answer of the Congo government was a suit for libel, brought 
by Captain de Keyser, long stationed in the Congo Basin, who was 
grossly libelled in the screed of Burrows. The whole matter was 
aired in the English courts, and the Captain and his English 
publishers, Messrs. R. A. Everett & Company, left the court in 
dismay and lamentation, self-convicted libelers, and the publica- 
tion of the work was perpetually enjoined, which injunction is 
still in full force and effect. 



i8 

WORK OF HENRY WELLINGTON WACK. 

This work subsequently found its way into print and has been 
the inspiration of many of the Hbels and calumnies hurled at the 
head of King Leopold and the Free State government. "The 
Curse of Central Africa," Captain Burrows' book, has performed 
yeomanry service in the work of Congo detraction. Poison may 
still lurk in its pages, but I venture to say that it, and many other 
works of the same ilk, received their quietus upon the publication 
recently of a work entitled "The Story of the Congo Free State/' 
by Henry Wellington Wack, of the New York Bar, Fellow of the 
Royal Geographical Society. Whatever excuse there may have 
been heretofore for ignorance on this subject, it no longer exists. 
Mr. Wack, a disinterested and scholarly gentleman, has given us 
the truth. He has not extenuated or set down aught in malice. 
A plain, unvarnished tale is his, and it must carry conviction. 
I commend a reading of this work to all those who desire to learn 
the true history of the Congo Free State and the struggles and 
aspirations of its founders. 

ALLEGED ATROCITIES. 

Anyone acquainted with the bibliography of Congo detrac- 
tion must have been impressed with the utter dearth of specifica- 
tion. They speak of the natives being robbed of their lands, of 
enforced labor without compensation, of irregular, and for that 
matter, regular troops, perpetrating atrocities, of maimed children 
and scourged and outraged women; but, when called upon to 
place their finger upon any particular sore spot, they fall back on 
generalities or regale the public with accounts of outrages com- 
mitted in the campaign against the Arabs in 1892-3. Congo 
Lutete, ally of the Arab slave raiders, was defeated by Baron 
Dhanis, whereupon Congo made his submission to the Congo 
government and was employed, along with the native forces he 
raised, against his former allies, the Arabs. In the engagement 
which followed, cannibalism was undoubtedly practised, but not 
among the State troops. 



19 

CHARGES IN MEMORIAL. 

But to return to the charges contained in the Memorial. The 
primary objects sought to be obtained by the Berlin Conference 
were, the inauguration of free trade within the Congo Basin, the 
preservation of the native populations, and the improvement of 
their moral and material condition. That these conditions have 
been faithfully complied with is attested by the testimony of such 
disinterested witnesses as Major James Harrison, the famous 
Central African traveler, who has journeyed through many por- 
tions of the dark continent where no other traveler has ever laid 
his foot, who has added many important and valuable observations 
and items of information to our store of knowledge of the black 
man's country, and has been personally associated for more than 
a generation with Equatorial Africa, and the travelers who have 
literally given Africa to the world. 

MRS. FRENCH-SHELDON. 

Mrs. French- Sheldon, the famous traveler, having made an 
independent investigation of Congolese conditions in the Free State, 
recently returned to Europe, and, in an interview published in 
the Journal of Commerce of January 4th, 1905, announced to the 
world that the charges made against King Leopold and the Congo 
government were absolutely without foundation. To use her 
own words, "The evidence is absolutely conclusive that the labors 
of the Congo Free State have added to the material prosperity, the 
happiness, and the development of the natives, whilst the opening 
up of the country and the introduction of order and system in place 
of chaos will forever redound to the credit of King Leopold and 
those with whom he is associated." 

FREE TRADE. 

Free trade exists within the confines of the territory of the 
Congo State, if one has a correct understanding of the term. 
Free trade, as everyone knows, implies the right of interchange 
of commodities between the people of different countries and has 
no reference to strictly internal commerce. There is no country 



20 

in the world, with whose institutions I am famiUar, which does 
not impose conditions upon the right to carry on internal traffic. 
These conditions generally take the form of a Hcense tax, and in 
some countries individuals are absolutely excluded, as is the case, as 
I understand it, in France, whose government possesses a monop- 
oly of the tobacco business, and in South Carolina, where the State 
Dispensary has taken the place of the saloon. In the very nature 
of things, there can be no such thing as free trade in land. Access 
to land in every country boasting of even the rudiments of civili- 
zation is of necessity restricted to the proprietors of the soil, and 
in most countries, including our own, the legal theory is indulged 
that the original and ultimate ownership reside in the govern- 
ment. The granting by a government of the exclusive right to 
the use of a tract of land implies, in a sense, a monopoly, for the 
granting to one person implies the exclusion of every one else. 
This sort of monopoly, which flourishes wherever civilization ex- 
ists, and which, in the opinion of leading economists, is the very 
foundation of our institutions, and lies at the base of whatever 
good our civilization has accomplished, is not the monopoly for- 
bidden by the act of the Berlin Conference. 

NATION DEFINED. 

A nation has been defined to be a body politic, a society of 
men united for the purpose of promoting their mutual safety and 
advantage by the joint effort of their combined strength. Such 
a society has its affairs and its interests. It is susceptible of obli- 
gations and rights, thus becoming a moral person possessing an 
understanding and will peculiar to itself. That the Independent 
State of the Congo is a Government within the foregoing defini- 
tion has passed beyond the domain of discussion, and as far at 
least as this government is concerned, is a closed question. The 
State existed by right and in fact long before the meeting of the 
Berlin Conference. It was founded before 1883 by the King of 
the Belgians by right among other forms of title of the priority of 
his occupations in the Congo Basin. Under the name of the Inter- 
national Association of the Congo, it was recognized as an inde- 



21 

pendent sovereign and autonomous State by the government of 
the United States, and any interference on our part with its in- 
ternal policy might very well be regarded as an unfriendly act. 

CONGO GOVERNMENT TREATIES. 

The Congo government has the right to and does demand 
that the treaties which were the result of the Berlin Conference 
should be interpreted in the light of the foregoing declaration. 
In common with, and following the practice of civilized nations, the 
government in question has entered into treaties of amity, com- 
merce and navigation with the other nations of the globe. These 
treaties do not involve the surrender of any rights which the 
Congo government has in common with all civilized states to the 
absolute and exclusive control of its own internal affairs and to 
adopt such laws and customs as in its judgment shall best conduce 
to the happiness and welfare of its people. The monopolies al- 
leged and exclusive privileges complained of by the commercially 
interested critics of the Congo government are not peculiar to that 
country, but flourish wherever civilization sheds its light. They 
result from the fact that the nature of mankind requires that laws 
should be established for the regulation of property and personal 
rights. The necessity of these laws is exemplified by the action 
of the British government with reference to its colonial posses- 
sions, and also by the action of the government of the United 
States in controlling its internal affairs, particularly with refer- 
ence to its public domain and its control of the Indian tribes. 

BRITISH INDIA. 

The trading powers given by the English government to the 
companies organized for the purpose of exploiting the resources 
of British India were restricted to the grantees exclusively, and 
were accompanied by the exercise of governmental powers out of 
all proportion to the powers exercised by the Congo Free State. 

LAND LAWS, ETC.. U. S. 

The laws of the United States granting exclusive privileges to 
the Alaska Commercial Company for the taking of fur-bearing 



22 

animals upon the islands adjacent to the Alaskan Coast are a 
striking illustration of the necessity for regulating the control of 
public property in order to prevent its annihilation. The laws 
of the United States relating to forest reservations, the timber 
culture act, the granting of lands to the Pacific railroads for the 
purpose of aiding in their construction, the land laws of the United 
States and the general policy of the government with reference to 
its property, all point strikingly to the fact that the government 
of the Congo in imposing conditions upon the right to use its lands 
and exploit its natural resources was acting in accordance with 
principles which are at the very base of civilization, and doing 
what was absolutely necessary to preserve for posterity the natural 
resources of the country. 

INTERNATIONAL LAW-DEFINITION OF. 

Under international law, which has been defined as the rules 
which determine the conduct of the general body of civilized 
states in their dealings with one another, a nation is under no obli- 
gation to fashion its internal policy so as to comport with the 
desires or prejudices of any foreign state. Whether we use the 
term international law or the law of nations, which is the modern 
terminology, we are forced to the same conclusion. States are 
separate entities, and, outside of the obligation to manage their 
affairs so as not to offend against those principles the observance 
of which, in their strict integrity, are essential to the peace and 
harmony which should characterize the relations between states, 
they owe no duty to foreign governments. When a nation pre- 
serves in their integrity those rules of conduct regulating the in- 
tercourse of states, and which civilized nations acknowledge to be 
obligatory in their dealings with one another, and that collection 
of usages which civilized states have agreed to observe in their 
dealings with one another, they have performed all that they are 
required to do under the canons of international law, and although 
their internal polity may be open to criticism from an abstract or 
moral point of view, this affords no justification for interference 
nor does it give rise to the necessity of taking any action, either 



t^,^ 



23 



by an expression of executive sentiments or legislative resolution 
in condemning that which mayhap does not meet with our approval. 
I cannot do better in support of my contentions than to quote your 
ewn words in your last annual message to Congress : 

"We have plenty of sins of our own to war against, and under ordinary 
circumstances we can do more for the general uplifting of humanity by 
striving with heart and soul to put a stop to civic corruption, to brutal 
lawlessness and violent race prejudices here at home, than by passing reso- 
hitions about wrong-doing elsewhere. * * * There must be no effort 
made to remove the mote from our brother's eye if we refuse to remove the 
beam from our own." 

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S MESSAGE. 

These are words that make for peace and goodwill among the 
nations, and any departure therefrom must be fraught with evil 
consequences, not only to ourself as a nation, but to all countries 
with which we hope to maintain friendly intercourse and whose 
good report we value. 

NEGRO UPLIFTING. 

The people of this country are not ignorant of the difficulties 
connected with the uplifting of th-e negro. When we consider 
that in this country millions of treasure and thousands of lives 
were offered up in order to strike the shackles from four millions 
of slaves, and that the heart-burnings which followed the de- 
struction of an institution which many members of the Anglo- 
Saxon race regarded as of divine origin have not been quenched, 
it behooves us to be charitable in our estimation of the work per- 
formed by the Congo State and its ruler, King Leopold. 

LEOPOLD'S CHARACTER. 

We recall that here, in our own land, this beloved nation of 
ours was almost severed in twain — that millions of money were 
expended and will still be expended — hundreds of thousands of 
precious lives have gone to their deaths, our whole nation has 
been bent in sorrow, and we can still hear the sobs of the aching 
hearts of those who have lingered behind. All of which makes up 



24 

in part the sum that it cost to free four milUon civiHzed, Chris- 
tianized negro slaves in America. Though freed forty years ago, 
the problem of their future is still a question that agitates this 
country and exercises the mentality of our very best statesmen, 
who are in deep meditation for a solution that will fully carry out 
the hopes and ambitions of the great Lincoln, who has been and 
always will be, revered by a loving and a grateful nation as the 
Moses that led the black man from out of bondage. When all of 
this is reflected upon, and the thoughtful and unprejudiced mind 
looks at the Congo situation, and the work of its sovereign and his 
subjects; when they contemplate that nearly two thousand years 
of civilization has been crowded into twenty-five years, within 
which time Leopold has unshackled over thirty millions of savage 
negroes, they view with admiration this wise statesman and phil- 
osopher king. Twenty-five years ago he adopted as the motto 
of the State the sentiment that we are just coming to appreciate 
as a method of bringing the American negro to a future, to wit, 
the sentiment : "Work and labor." Work and labor mean the re- 
tirement from a state of idleness and irresponsibility into that of 
responsibility and industry, and that beneficent result has not been 
obtained in the Congo without the cost of many precious lives, 
white and black, and great hardship on the part of those who have 
been active in bringing about this condition, as well as the ex- 
penditure of millions of money out of the personal and private 
purse of Leopold, who has given a life-time to this grand work 
and who is still devoting the energy of his splendid three-score 
years and ten to the continuance of the betterment of the govern- 
ment of the Congo Free State. The time is not far distant, if 
indeed it is not already present, when the world, white and black, 
must attorn in gratitude and treat with great nobility and rever- 
ence the life work of this philosophical, gracious and kindly sov- 
ereign. 

The American people and its governing power have been 
face to face with a kindred subject, to wit, civilizing natives that 
came to us as heritage through our late war with Spain. The 
kaleidescope of time need not be presented to you, Mr. President, 



25 

for you are now using the wisdom of your administration in de- 
veloping, civilizing and bringing about religious conditions in the 
Philippines, it would be an usurpation of your valuable time to 
attempt to recall the great labor attending this great work and 
that yet to be accomplished, and though every effort comes from 
the heart and conscience of duty, still there are hundreds of carping 
critics, who are calling the administration's motives into question, 
and would, if they could, tear down all the grand work that has 
been built up in the advancement of the wards of this nation. 

FOREIGN RELATIONS. 

While the conduct of the Congo Free State in its foreign 
relations has always been marked by courtesy and goodwill, it is 
nevertheless true that, had it been otherwise, it would present no 
just cause for complaint, for nothing is better settled, as a matter 
of international law, than that a nation may do things which are 
discourteous, high-handed and unfair and yet be within its ad- 
mitted rights and giving no formal ground for complaint. 

STATEHOOD. 

The essential features of statehood are dominion over persons 
and property. The want of either of these requisites completely 
destroys all idea of statehood. The dominion must of necessity 
be absolute, and this is true no matter what form the government 
assumes, whether autocratic, monarchical or democratic. The 
supreme power must rest somewhere, and wherever lodged, 
whether in the people, the sovereign or the government, it is in 
its nature plenary and beyond the influence of any foreign state. 
Absolute internal power and outward independence, except as 
modified and controlled by the law of nations, are the marks which 
distinguish independent states, and wherever these are controlled 
or modified, the result is a surrender of sovereignty and a conse- 
quent destruction of independence. 

U. S. GOVERNMENT-ACTION BY. 

Any official action on the part of the President of the United 
States in the nature of an expression of sympathy with the work 



26 

of the maligners of the Congo government, or any executive action 
on his part, having in view the investigation of the internal affairs 
of the Congo, would be a direct attack upon its integrity as a gov- 
ernment, and, if effectual, would involve a complete or partial sur- 
render of its governmental functions. 

ROYAL GRANTS. 

In dealing with the questions of royal grants and monopolies, 
whether considered historically or comparatively, the absolute 
adherence to well settled principles is a marked feature of the 
policy of the government which I have the honor to represent. 
There has been no departure from rules which the experience of 
mankind has demonstrated are necessary for the conservation of 
public property and the encouragement of private enterprise. 
Crimes and offenses in this country, as everywhere else, are de- 
fined, prosecuted and punished by the sovereign authority of the 
state. In some respects the criminal laws of the country differ 
from those of civilized nations and for this reason, which must 
be apparent to everyone, that the circumstances surrounding the 
administration of justice in the Congo Basin are peculiar and re- 
pressive measures are necessary to restrain the savage tribes and 
bring them into a condition of subjection and order. 

MONOPOLIES. 

As to the granting of monopolies, this has always been held 
to relate to the internal policy of the government and grows out 
of its right to exercise the police power which is inherent in every 
state. The question as to public policy is a matter to be deter- 
mined by the state itself, and if the right to exercise a monopoly 
is conferred by public authority, that fact is conclusive upon the 
question of public policy. In other words, every government de- 
termines for itself, and without reference to the interests of 
foreigners, just what franchises it shall bestow and who shall be 
its beneficiaries. There can be no natural or legal right to engage 
in a business which the public authority of a state has conferred 
exclusively upon some one else. Even in a government such as 



27 

ours, special privileges are in many cases conferred upon citizens. 
In most, if in not all of the states, the right to a grant of corporate 
privileges is restricted to such associations of individuals a ma- 
jority of whose board of directors are citizens and in many cases 
residents of the state granting the franchise. The Federal Gov- 
ernment has always maintained, and this without question, the 
absolute right to dispose of its lands to such persons, at such 
times, in such modes, and by such titles as it has deemed most 
advantageous. The power which a government has to dispose of 
its lands includes the power to lease, as well as to sell, a govern- 
ment having the same rights with reference to its lands and other 
property as any individual, and the possession or occupancy of 
land belonging to the government without a license constitutes a 
trespass. xA.s everyone knovrs, the acquisition of title to lands 
under the Timber Culture Act of the United States is conditional 
upon the planting of a part of the claim with timber and keeping 
it in a good state of cultivation for a term of years after the entry 
of the land. Our government has always, in its treatment of the 
Indian tribes, assumed that they were under a state of tutelage 
and refused to recognize in them any right to transfer their lands. 
A transfer of lands unaccompanied by governmental consent by 
Indians maintaining their tribal relations is a void act and con- 
trary to the expressed policy of this government. 

EXCLUSIVE PRIVILEGES. 

The granting to individuals or corporations of privileges not 
of common right has never been held to create monopolies, for the 
reason that unless a person has a right common with others in a 
particular business or calling, his deprivation of it by the state 
cannot give rise to any just cause of complaint. To render a 
grant by th^ state of exclusive privileges unlawful as a monopoly, 
the grant must apply to things which are of common right, not to 
those which are in their nature a monopoly, and over which the 
state having antecedent proprietorship by right of eminent domain 
or otherwise, may confer exclusive control. There are, therefore. 



28 

legislative grants of exclusive privilege which are upheld, even 
though in effect they create monopolies, such as the exclusive per- 
mit to operate a ferry, to erect a toll bridge, to erect wharves, and 
generally, whenever, by accepting the grant of an exclusive fran- 
chise rested in the state, the grantee becomes bound by an express 
or implied undertaking to render service to the public. 

TESTIMONY OF SIR HENRY STANLEY. 

The Congo Free State, in answer to its critics, may invoke 
in its behalf the testimony of Sir Henry Stanley, whose life was 
given to African exploration, and the testimony of leading mis- 
sionaries, travelers and publicists, who either moved by a spirit 
of curiosity or inspired by a desire to add to the sum of human 
happiness, have put aside all idea of physical comfort and have 
traveled extensively in Central Africa. 

Mr. Stanley, in the "Petit Bleu" of the 13th of November, 
1903, in speaking of the difficulties of impressing the natives with 
the ideas of civilization and calling attention to the fact that the 
abuses with which the Congo State is taxed are individual of- 
fenses, mistakes of inexperienced officers and local incidents such 
as take place in all colonies, says : 

I am certain that not one of the countries who are invited by the 
newspapers to put itself in its (Belgium's) place would have been able to 
do better. 

The recitals of atrocities and bad administrations which have of late 
been spread about are almost all, if not all, pure reports. 

To-day, with its forests pierced and open, its routes, its stations, it is in 
advance of all other African States. Take the French Congo, the German 
East Africa, Portuguese West Africa, and compare them. The Congo 
State prospers in a greater degree than any other part of the black continent. 

When I was on the Congo and accused a tribe of cannibalism, it 
replied : "We are not cannibals, but our neighbors are." The neighboring 
tribe said : "It is not we, it is the next tribe that you will meet" ; and that 
tribe referred us on to the next, and so on continually. They seemed to be 
ashamed of their cannibalism. They concealed it. Yet there was no doubt 
as to the existence of the practice. It was very seldom that I could discover 
the guilty. How, then, in recruiting its troops, was the Congo to distin- 
guish the black cannibals from those who were not cannibals? 



29 

They discharge their mission under the most difficult conditions, and I 
Relieve that I may assert that, from the Governor-General down to the 
humblest official, there is not one guilty of cruelty. 

I had on the Congo under my orders three hundred men, English, 
Germans, Dutch, Portuguese, Belgians. I found no difference between 
them. All did their best according to their means. All were in the course 
of duty the object of some charge. I examined the charges minutely and 
always found them to be without foundation. That did not prevent these 
stories reaching Banana, and from there, Europe. 

England would not have managed the Congo better than King Leopold 
has done if she had been mistress of it, as she might have become in 1877. 

I crossed Africa from East to West and from West to East, and I never 
saw any excesses committed. I do not think that from this point of view 
there is a single sovereign living who has done so much for humanity as 
Leopold II." 

TESTIMONY OF SIR HARRY JOHNSTON. 

Sir Harry Johnston furnishes decisive testimony in favor of 
the Independent State in his book "The Uganda Protectorate." 
He contrasts the differences between the governments of British 
Central Africa and the Free State and concludes that the govern- 
ment of this portion of African territory left little to be desired, 
and in some respect was better organized than the adjoining dis- 
tricts of the British Protectorate. 

TESTIMONY OF MR. McGUIRE. 

Like testimony has been given by Mr. McGuire, the English 
missionary, who, after traveling the length and breadth of the 
Congo Basin, says that he never heard of any atrocities com- 
mitted by the agents of the Free State and that the little work 
which is occasionally exacted of the natives by way of taxes is 
as nothing compared with the immense benefits conferred upon 
them by the State. 

GENERAL TESTIMONY. 

We could cite pages and pages of laudation of King Leopold's 
reign over the Congo Basin, written by zealous, active, high-hearted 
and aggressive men and women who have penetrated into the 
darkest confines of the African forest in order to confer the bless- 



30 

ings of civilization and religion upon the hapless people of that 
country. Suffice it to say that, when such persons are agreed that 
the Belgians have performed a great work along civilizing and up- 
lifting lines, it ill becomes the executives of missionary societies 
sitting in their luxurious offices in Boston and New York to hurl 
their anathemas at the one Prince of modern times, who, setting 
aside all desire for glory or emolument, has devoted his long life 
to the building up of a civilization in the very heart of the dark 
continent. It must be remembered in considering this evidence 
that it comes from an absolutely disinterested source and from per- 
sons who have been over the ground and who could not be mis- 
led into forming misconceptions of the true situation. 

MISSIONARIES. 

A powerful blow is delivered agamst the pretender who sits 
in his Boston office, claiming in the interest of the religious people 
of America that he is justified in exclaiming against the Congo 
and its cruelties as administered by the Belgic forces. This blow 
comes from the British Baptist Missionary Society, which, in 
January, 1903, sent to Brussels a deputation with an address which 
was tendered to the King- Sovereign, wherein the deputation ex- 
pressed its feelings of gratitude and tendered its commendation for 
the kind, humane and ever-considerate and devoted attention that 
had been accorded to its members. The address reads as follows : 

"The Committee of the British Baptist Missionary Society, of London, 
desire most respectfully to address Your Majesty as Sovereign of the 
Congo Free State, and to express their grateful acknowledgments for 
Your Majesty's gracious and helpful sympathy with all wisely considered 
efforts put forth for the enlightenment and uplifting of Your Majesty's 
native subjects living within the territories of the Congo Free State. 

"In the prosecution of these labours, the Committee of the Baptist 
Missionary Society desire gratefully to acknowledge the many signal and 
helpful proofs they have received of Your Gracious Majesty's approval 
and support; and very specially at this juncture they are pleased to express 
to Your Majesty their respectful appreciation of the great boon granted 
"to all religious, scientific and charitable institutions," by the reduction of 
direct and personal taxes by 50 per cent, from, on, and after the first day 



31 

of July last, as proclaimed by Your Majesty's command in the May and 
June issues of the Bulletin officiel de I'Etat independant du Congo, which 
the Committee regard as a further and significant proof of Your Majesty's 
desire to promote the truest welfare of Your Majesty's Congo subjects, and 
to help forward all institutions calculated to produce enduring and benefi- 
cent results." 

It may be said that it has been the experience of all govern- 
ments, colonial and othenvise, that the good missionary who labors 
with his flock, and among them, and produces results, is of great 
benefit to the progress of a country, but the indolent, selfish, 
vicious-minded missionan,' who abandons his vineyard and his 
flock while he may here and there find a listener whose sympathies 
may be momentarily aroused, when he is carefully scrutinized, he 
is unmasked and fails in his purpose of deluding the most ordinary 
of men. 

This country has been made to taste of the insincerity of a 
class of missionaries that were sent to the Philippines, and we cer- 
tainly know the value of and are able to discriminate between the 
good and bad of that calling. 

The Congo Free State has been most generous to the mission- 
aries of every religion and has invited them with open arms from 
wherever they may come, into any and every part of Africa, and 
has aided them with the State lands and the greatest consideration 
in the matter of taxes. It would be interesting to observe the 
great number of missionaries which exist in the Congo and the 
varied denominations among them. 

According to the information contained in a recent book by 
Dr. Henr\- Guinness entitled *'Our Mission on the Congo," the 
Doctor presents the striking information that there are 211 Pro- 
testant missionaries in the Congo Basin, besides 283 native even- 
gehsts and 327 native catechists. There are forty principal sta- 
tions and 192 mission posts, and 6,021 communicants. The at- 
tendance at Sunday schools numbers 5,641 natives, and at the day 
schools 10,162. And, according to a statement recently published 
by the Catholic authorities, the staff of the Catholic missions com- 
prises 119 priests, 41 laybrethren and 84 sisters, makinc: a total of 



32 

244- These missions comprise in all 18,973 Qiristians, including 
5,5i5_children. The State is liberality itself in granting them the 
enjoyment of the land necessary for cultivation besides subsidies 
or reduction of taxes. 

The instructions given to the agents of the Congo government 
direct them to help the development and the prosperity of the mis- 
sions by all means in their power, and even a cursory examination 
of the periodicals issued by the evangelizing missions will show 
considerable evidence that the missionaries of the various sects 
are grateful for the practical help accorded to them by the Congo 
government and its officials. 

MR. BARBOUR. 

It may be noted that, immediately after I had the honor of 
presenting to you the reply of the "Federation pour la Defense des 
Interets Beiges a TEtranger" to the Liverpool Memorial, a pub- 
lication of the same was noted in the daily journals, I was chal- 
lenged by the Foreign Secretary of the American Baptist Mis- 
sionary Union, Mr. Barbour. It appeared somewhat strange to 
me, why Mr. Barbour should take it upon himself to venture the 
expense of hiring halls, paying for advertising matter, and enter- 
ing into a debate between himself and me on the subject of "Ought 
existing conditions in the Congo State to be made a subject of in- 
ternational inquiry ?" I give his entire letter in the appendix to this 
brief and wish to call attention to the fact that he said it seemed 
very important to him that a correct understanding of the situation 
should be reached, not only by ourselves, but by the general pub- 
lic. Of course, I can readily understand how Mr. Barbour could 
talk for himself, but his license to include the general public 
seems slightly grotesque and rather a wholesale assumption of 
duty on his part. 

CARDINAL GIBBONS. 

After reading the letter, I recall that that eminent and highly 
respected divine Cardinal Gibbons, of Baltimore, had written an 



33 W 

advice concisely and learnedly upon the subject, which he ad- 
dressed to the Boston Peace Congress, but that, of course, af- 
forded no particular opportunity^ for the personnel of the Asso- 
ciation to exploit themselves, and the advice of His Eminence was 
swept aside and resolutions were passed upon a subject which the 
Foreign Society admits he was seeking for a clearer understand- 
ing regarding the issues thereof. Notwithstanding his clouded 
state of mind, Barbour and others indulged in passing resolutions 
of stricture against the Congo State. 

This letter was brought to my attention during the heat of 
the campaign, and I confess I was much happier in discussing the 
views of my party with my fellow citizens than I would have been 
discussing the subject of the Congo Free State with a learned and 
reverend gentleman whom I never had the pleasure of knowing or 
hearing before, and I could not understand how any number of 
people would desire to make up an audience to listen to Mr. Bar- 
bour on one side, whose interest in this matter must at least be 
considered doubtful, and myself on the other side, whose interest in 
the matter is an open secret, being the retained counsel for the 
Congo Free State to protect its interests as far as it lies within 
my ability so to do, here and elsewhere, and, knowing that the dis- 
cussion of generalities never leads to any conclusion, I sought to 
have the learned gentleman indite a complaint, specifying some 
specific acts and the persons committing the acts, and other things 
important, so that a direct answer could be made, and I sent the 
reverend gentleman the letter, which will be found in the ap- 
pendix. 

But in the meantime one of the associates of Mr. Barbour, 
a Mr. Parker, through the newspapers, whipped himself into a 
frenzied state, claiming that His Majesty King Leopold, through 
his agents and hifed attorneys, was encroaching upon the draw- 
ing rooms of our best citizens, as well as into the counting rooms 
of the banking houses, and was in some way interfering with what 
the Boston Society seemed to think was its rightful monopoly. 

To the letter written by me, no answer was returned. 



34 

It may be well to conclude this brief with a summary of what 
is shown by actual figures to be the industrial condition of the 
country : 

In the year 1886 the special commerce of the 

country showed Fes. 1,980,441.45 

And the general commerce 7,667,969.41 

In the year 1903 the special commerce amounted 

to 54,597,835.21 

And the general commerce 63,955,400.53 

There is paid out by the government for the maintenance 
of the army, navy, sanitary department, public works, missions 
and educational establishments and the administrative service of 
Africa and Europe, as well as the expense relating to transports in 
Africa, agriculture, exploitation of the domain, savings banks, in- 
terest on the loan on guaranteed stock, postal department, navi- 
gation, justice and worship expenditures, amounting to about 
thirty odd million francs. This money is, of course, distributed 
among the people. Thousands of natives are used in building 
roads of all kinds ; the natives are fast learning trades. The state 
of agriculture is progressing rapidly — in fact the industries of the 
country are multiplying with such rapidity that it is difficult to 
keep pace with them. The Congo Free State is alive to work, and 
its people are more prosperous and earning more money, and it 
will continue so. And when the work of its sovereign is com- 
pleted and he is no longer of this earth, all the fruits of his labors 
are disposed of as set forth in his will, which will be found in the 
appendix. 

I ask, Mr. President, after perusing the documents set forth 
in the appendix, whether you find it justifiable, by word or act, 
to do aught save in commendation of him who, during his life's 
laber, has carried many burdens. 

In conclusion, permit me to say that Leopold II represents 
in a greater degree, perhaps, than any man living, the spirit of 
progress. It is given to few men in one short generation to re- 
claim from barbarism thirty millions of people. That he has done 



35 

this entitles him to the econiums of the world and he may rest 
assured, notwithstanding the venom of his detractors, his fame 
is secure in the hands of posterity. 

Respectfully submitted, 

HENRY I. KOWALSKY, 

51 Wall Street, New York. 
Attorney and Counsellor for 

LEOPOLD IL, 
King of Belgium and Sovereign of the 

Independent State of the Congo. 



37 



APPENDIX. 



WILL OF LEOPOLD IL 

We, Leopold IL, King of the Belgians, Sovereign of the Inde- 
pendent State of the Congo : 

Wishing to assure to Our well-beloved country the fruits of 
the work which for many years we have pursued on the African 
Continent, with the generous and devoted co-operation of many 
Belgians : 

Convinced of thus contributing to assure for Belgium, if she 
wishes it, the outlets indispensable for her commerce and her indus- 
try, and to open new paths for the activity of her children : 

Declare by these presents, that We bequeath and transmit 
after Our death to Belgium all our sovereign rights over the In- 
dependent State of the Congo, as they are recognized by the 
Declarations, Conventions, and Treaties concluded since 1884 
between the foreign Powers on the one side, the International 
Association of the Congo and the Independent State of the Congo 
on the other, as well as all the benefits, rights and advantages at- 
tached to that sovereignty. 

Whilst waiting for the Belgian Legislature to pronounce its 
acceptance of Our aforesaid disposition, the sovereignty will be 
exercised collectively by the Council of the three administrations of 
the Independent State of the Congo, and by the Governor-General. 

LEOPOLD. 
Done at Brussels the 2d of August, 1889. 



39 

LETTERS. 



LEOPOLD n. TO HENRY L KOWALSKY. 

Dear Colonel Kowalsky : 

I beg to confirm to you that I have instructed you to defend 
in the United States the case of the Congo Free State which is now 
being attacked by a group of English merchants and missionaries, 
at present represented in Washington by Mr. Morel. 

You have, in the course of your stay here, been enabled to 
convince yourself of the unfairness and falseness of these attacks, 
and the Free State Government rely on your endeavors to en- 
lighten statesmen and political men in the United States as to the 
true motives of this disparaging campaign, to show them the in- 
anity of the charges and to lay the truth before them, namely that 
for the last twenty-five years the Congo State has been working 
with a success that accounts for all this hatred and jealousy, 
toward introducing into territories, formerly abandoned to barbar- 
ism, civilization and progress and toward improving the material 
and moral conditions of existence of the natives. 

Under the stress of the indignation aroused in Belgium by the 
English calumnies, an extensive association has been formed in 
this country under the title of Federation pour la defense des 
interets beiges a Testranger (Federation for defending Belgian 
interests abroad) which consists of prominent men in the army, 
and in commercial and industrial circles. 

This association desired to submit to the enlightened mind 
of the President of the United States their protests against the 
audacious and untruthful statements contained in the Memorial 
which Mr. Morel has delivered to Mr. Roosevelt. 

At the request of said organization representing as it does 
the elite of the Belgian Nation, I beg you to hand the President 
the accompanying letter which faithfully sets out the higher prin- 
ciples of the Congo State's internal policy. You will, in delivering 
this communication to President Roosevelt, reiterate to him, on 
my behalf, the feelings of high esteem I have for him and the 



40 

unshaken confidence I place in his spirit of justice and impar- 
tiality. 

I have to express the desire that Mr. Roosevelt will kindly 
take cognizance of this address in your presence, so that you may 
be afforded an opportunity to give him any further information he 
might wish to obtain from you. 

The foundation and fairness of the case which you have been 
good enough to undertake to defend will supply you with such 
numerous and conclusive arguments as to confound the enemies 
of the Congo Free State. 

A mere examination of the Memorial issued by the Congo 
Reform Association will show the bad faith of these people when 
they affirm that the Commission of Enquiry recently appointed 
by the Government of the Congo does not enjoy complete liberty 
of investigation nor afford every guarantee of impartiality. This 
affirmation is at once denied by a perusal of the instructions of 
the Commission, which as will be seen by the accompanying text, 
have given them full liberty and full autonomy. 

This fact taken alone amongst many others is sufficient to 
caution honest people against the biased assertions of our op- 
ponents ; these are set at naught by the economic progress realized 
by the Congo State as is demonstrated by numbers of facts and 
illustrated by the album of photographic reproductions taken in 
the Congo, a copy of which will interest President Roosevelt. 
Believe me, dear Colonel Kowalsky, 
Yours truly, 
(Signed) LEOPOLD. 

Brussels, October 4, 1904. 



41 

DUFOURNE TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

Brussels, October 3, 1904. 

Federation 

pour la 

Defense des Interets Beiges, 

TEtranger. 

To His Excellency, Theodore Roosevelt, 

President of the United States. 
Mr. President: 

The Federation for the Defense of Belgian Interests Abroad 
presents its compliments to the President of the United States 
and begs leave to state : 

That we are loth to impose upon the President of the United 
States considerations which are foreign to the interests of his 
government. But inasmuch as certain persons are conducting 
within the United States a movement to involve the Government 
of the United States in the consideration of their unfounded 
charges and interested misrepresentations against the Government 
of the Congo Free State, we feel it our duty to present a brief 
statement of the objects of the Congo Government to the President 
of a friendly power in order that the unjust methods being em- 
ployed by the enemies of the Congo Free State may not mislead 
the President to encourage Congressional action prejudicial to our 
interests before we shall have been fully heard. 

Our Association has been formed for the defence of Belgian 
interests and possessions abroad. Our people esteem and admire 
the people of the United States and have great respect for their 
President. The Belgians desire that they shall not be slandered 
and vilified in the midst of the American people. They feel it 
their duty to assist the American people to a proper understand- 
ing of the lofty purposes which actuate the Government of the 
Congo Free State. In this connection the Belgians recall with 
pleasure and with pride the fact that the Government of the United 
States was the first great nation to recognize the flag of the Inter- 
national Association of the Congo as that of an independent State. 
By its treaties and by its adherence to the Berlin and Brussels 



Acts it promised liberty of trade in its part of the Congo Basin, 
and it respectfully asserts that it has fulfilled that promise in spirit 
and to the letter, insofar as the short term of its existence in a 
savage country has enabled it to establish an organization which, 
by its prosperity and progress, now excites the envy of those who 
seek to disrupt it. 

The principles which actuate the Congo Government are 
tersely set out in an essay written by a highly qualified American 
subject, which is herewith enclosed. May we humbly beg the 
President of the United States to honor us by perusing this con- 
cise exposition of the fundamental principles which underlie, and 
which have given such progressive momentum to, the Govern- 
ment of the Congo Free State? 

The principles of the Congo Government are devoted to prog- 
ress and civilization. The State's motto is "Work and Progress." 
We have always felt that to intelligently follow that motto was 
to firmly establish in the midst of conditions of savagery the 
habit of industry and a respect for property as well as for life, 
according to the universal law of nations. 

Concerning the term "Freedom of Commerce," which Congo 
enemies are interpreting to mean ungoverned license, we beg to 
refer the President to the United States Laws and Penalties con- 
cerning trespass upon and pillage of public lands and their prod- 
uct. Perhaps no nation in the world has so precisely developed 
the law of private and public property nor administered it with 
finer understanding of the principles of equity and justice than the 
United States. The Congo law relating to property is in con- 
sonance with the law of the world's greatest nations. The great 
success which has been attained by the Congo Government for 
the betterment of its native inhabitants by the operation of this law 
and the order which exists thereunder, has excited the envy and 
the avarice of those whose ulterior motive is being cloaked in the 
garb of humanitarianism and questionable philanthropy. On the 
one hand it is charged that the Congo Government by its methods 
seeks to enslave the native in order that he may serve it with 
his hands for the benefit of interests whose welfare he does noi 



43 

share. On the other hand, the Hbelers of the Congo wilfully 
utter not only the unfounded accusation, but the inconsistent 
charge, that the government cuts off the hand whose work it seeks 
to enslave. Concerning the untruthful character of the testimony 
in this respect which has been published against the Congo by the 
promoters of the so-called "Congo Reform Association" of Liver- 
pool, we beg to refer your Excellency to the great mass of 
genuine and reliable evidence uttered by Englishmen, French- 
men, Germans, Americans, Italians and Belgians in direct con- 
tradiction of the falsehoods which form the traffic of the Associa- 
tion, whose leading spirit has never been near the Congo nor the 
natives who form the pretext of his search for personal notoriety 
and aggrandisement. 

May we also call your Excellency's attention to the fact that 
the Congo Government, when assailed by missionaries at all, is 
assailed by a few individual missionaries operating in conjunction 
with the Liverpool Association, whose object we shall in due 
course expose? The Congo Government has not been assailed by 
Catholic missionaries at all. The Catholic missionaries are in 
reality seeking the moral, spiritual and intellectual betterment 
of the native race, while those of a maetrial faith, who have 
sought from the Congo Government and been denied personal 
concessions of material value solely, are secretly working in di- 
rections entirely unconnected with the spiritual and moral wel- 
fare of the Congo population. In due time and in the proper place 
the government of the Congo Free State will produce its testi- 
mony bearing upon this phase of the campaign begun in England, 
and now carried to the United States, against an undertaking 
which, within twenty years, has accomplished a greater success 
of civilization than has ever before been attained in all the great 
continent of Africa. 

We beg your Excellency to receive from the hands of our 
representative an abundance of carefully-prepared matter upon 
this subject, and to command him in any further desires which 
you may wish to express. A cursory outline, limited to only a 
few phases of the questions which the enemies of the Congo so 



44 

confusedly mince in their wild condemnation of a State justly 
founded aiid intelligently and humanly governed, is not, of course, 
intended as a sufficient statement of our case. It is merely in- 
tended to introduce your Excellency to the subject on which our 
representative and the evidence and Hterature he will offer to you 
may lead you to those wise and equitable conclusions which have 
always characterized the highest tribunals of the American 
people. 

Your Excellency is too well versed in the science of general 
government to be influenced by the statement that where indi- 
vidual acts are committed in violation of enacted penal laws the 
government should be primarily charged therewith. If such 
were the case penal institutions for the incarceration of violators 
of police law would be no part of a nation's structures. 

It is not infrequent that the cable bears to us mention that 
in some sections of your own free and glorious country an in- 
flamed mob seizes upon a black inhabitant and burns him at the 
stake. Our governmental experience has taught us that such 
acts would have been impossible if your government had been 
advised in time to prevent them. And yet we know that your 
government is the subject of harsh criticism by self-constituted 
associations formed in the same country from whence come those 
who accuse the sincere governmental effort of the Congo Free 
State. The law of the Congo Free State is based upon the loftiest 
ideals of humane control of a vast territory and undeveloped in- 
terests, and every part of the State's machinery is employed to 
ensure equal justice to all. 

The "method of the State" at which Congo accusers hurl 
their shafts, cannot be charged with the responsibility for the 
lawless acts, in a vast territory of a million square miles, where 
the government of that State is vigilantly and earnestly seeking 
by the extension of its organization and police powers to sup- 
press and punish all crime and redress all wrongs. If the subjects 
of one nation were compelled to submit to the opinion of its un- 
friendly neighbors as to the correctness of their habits and con- 
duct, and were compelled to submit themselves to the penalties 



45 

that their neighbors would attach to the alleged misconduct, the 
subjects of one nation would be in the prisons of another. 

We need hardly call the attention of your government to the 
great and humane work which your government is now so 
earnestly and with so much sacrifice furthering in the Philippine 
Islands, to meet with that broad and sympathetic view of the 
situation in all savage countries which, if fairly and justly ap- 
plied to the Congo Free State, would place us upon that plane 
where co-operation, not criticism, were the merit of our sacrificial 
work in the darkest part of Africa. 

It has been the pleasure of our beloved King, Leopold 11. , 
Sovereign of the Congo Free State, to appoint a Commission 
composed of eminent men to undertake w4th the utmost freedom 
a judicial investigation upon all and singular the vague charges 
from time to time used by the promoters of the ''Congo Reform 
Association" in prostituting certain public journals published in 
England. Your Excellency may be assured of the utmost in- 
tegrity of the gentlemen who compose this Commission and that 
the Congo Government will afford them all the help in its power 
to place the truth before the eyes of the world. 

In this connection Congo reformers- pretend that the decisions 
of the Congo courts indicate that the government is bad, when 
in truth and in fact these very decisions are, in our opinion, proof 
of unimpeachable good faith and judicial independence. 

Concerning the Congo standing army of 14,000 natives, as 
to which some criticism is uttered by the same persons, we need 
only indicate that the State Government is so well respected in 
the Congo Basin that it is able to control its vast territory with 
only seven soldiers to every 625 square miles. We have no doubt 
that if the Congo governmental system had not included this 
meagre police force for the repression of tribal strife and the 
maintenance of order, its critics would have represented the 
Congo Government as unprepared to guarantee protection to per- 
sons and to property, and unable to maintain the integrity of its 
frontiers. The Congo army is recruited in conformity with the 
Belgian law of Conscription, which is a restriction of the universal 



46 

service in continental Europe. When heretofore the government 
enlisted a part of its army in a neighboring colony, it was re- 
quested to desist, the promises of England to permit such recruit- 
ing notwithstanding. Now the Congo Army is characterized as 
barbarian! We are assured that the Congo Government would 
have no objection to the advantage of recruiting its army in 
China, in a manner following that of the Transvaal. 

It is the earnest desire of the Belgian people and those who 
are sincerely interested in the welfare and progress of the native 
population of mid- Africa, that the good-will and respect of the 
people of the United States and their President may continue, 
by their sympathy, to enliven the devotion, energy and sacrifice 
which the builders of the Congo Free State are expending upon 
races which but a few years ago were in a state of the wildest 
savagery. The vein of sympathy between Belgium and America 
has its highest proof from the fact that we have a large popula- 
tion of Americans residing in Belgium, where their residence has 
always been peculiarly pleasurable to the Belgian people. 

Commending to your Excellency our representative, who is 
an eminent citizen of the United States and well known to its 
President, we beg for him that courtesy and attention and the 
application of those broad principles which your Excellency in- 
variably brings to the consideration of all subjects. 

We are, Mr. President, with great respect, 

Your obedient servants, 
(Signed) DUFOURNE, 

The President of the Federation pour 
le Defense des Interets Beiges a 
I'Etrangfer. 



47 

THOMAS S. BARBOUR TO HENRY I. KOWALSKY. 

THE AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSIONARY UNION. 
Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 

October i8, 1904. 
Colonel Henry Kowalsky, 

Care Baron Moncheur, Minister, 
Washington, D. C. 

My Dear Sir : 

I have read with interest the statements made in the papers 
of this morning regarding your interview with President Roose- 
velt, and your conversation with newspaper correspondents in ref- 
erence to Conditions in the Independent State of the Congo. I 
observe that the views to which you give expression differ widely 
from the impressions made upon my mind by testimony received 
from many sources. As this subject is one of profound interest, 
affecting the well-being of many millions of people, and concerning 
the duty of our own Government as well as that of other govern- 
ments in relation to these people, it seems to me very important 
that a correct understanding of the situation shall be reached, not 
only by ourselves but by the general public. 

As you are aware, the body which I have the honor to repre- 
sent in the appeal made to the Congress of the United States, has 
asked only that the influence of our Government shall be given to 
the promotion of an impartial inquiry into the conditions prevail- 
ing under the rule of the Congo Government. With a view to a 
clear understanding of the issue thus recognized, and the ascer- 
tainment of the true facts of the situation, I venture to make to 
you the proposition that we shall meet in some public hall in the 
City of Washington, at a time and under conditions to be deter- 
mined through correspondence, for a frank discussion of the 
question, "Ought existing conditions in the Congo State to be 
made a subject of international inquiry?" 

I may add that in case you should find it inconvenient to 
arrange for the appointment suggested I would consent that any 



48 

other representative of the Congo State should meet the engage- 
ment in your place. 

In behalf of the Conference of Societies represented 
in Missionary and Philanthropic Work in the 
Congo State, believe me 
Very truly yours, 

THOMAS S. BARBOUR, 

Chairman of Conference. 



49 

HENRY I. KOWALSKY TO THOMAS S. BARBOUR. 

New York, November i6, 1904. 

Thomas S. Barbour, D.D., Cor. Sec'y, 
American Baptist Missionary Union, 
Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass. 

My Dear Sir: 

Your letter of October i8th addressed to me under care of 
Baron Moncheur, Belgian Minister, Washington, D. C, was for- 
warded to me at the Hoffman House. I learned of the existence 
of this letter through the newspapers before I had the honor of 
receiving the original. The important position you occupy as the 
executive head of the foreign department of the American Baptist 
Missionary Society entitles your letter to respectful consideration. 
Absence from the city and important engagements must be my 
excuse for not having answered it before this. 

I note with pleasure the interest you take in the affairs of 
the Congo Free State and your desire for light in regard to the 
conditions existing in that country. You say the impressions made 
upon your mind by testimony obtained from many sources differ 
materially from the statements made by me in my conversations 
with newspaper correspondents regarding the subject. I may say 
that my views in relation to this subject are in no wise peculiar; 
they were arrived at after a full investigation of the testimony 
of reputable and disinterested persons and after an examination 
of many documents. In fact, I reserved for myself a lawyer's 
right of thorough investigation, and of being convinced of the 
truth and justice of the cause of the Congo Free State before con- 
senting to be retained. My continued investigations into the 
State's affairs and my observation of the methods of those who are 
slandering and vilifying it, only tend to confirm my belief that a 
great wrong is being heaped upon a government which is working 
nobly and unselfishly to advance civilization and religion among 
a race which but a few years since was wild and savage. Minis- 
ters properly following their vocation should be peacemakers, 
not tormentors of those who, according to the testimony of honest 



50 

travelers, regardless of creed, have embraced this vast field, and 
its opportunities to serve God and humanity. 

My beliefs represent in the main the views heretofore ex- 
pressed by his Eminence, Cardinal Gibbons. 

Your proposition to meet me in joint debate in the City of 
Washington would have my hearty approval were it not for the 
fact that I question the propriety of either you or I engaging, as 
mere partisans, in debating a question, which as you well say, 
involves a subject of profound interest affecting the well-being 
of many millions of people. The subject, in my humble judgment, 
is too grave and is fraught with too serious consequences to 
warrant the indulgence of any partisanship, and I am not am- 
bitious to occupy the public eye unnecessarily, especially for the 
purpose of debating at random along partisan lines. 

Permit me to say in all kindness that your letter indicates the 
advocate and controversialist rather than the unbiased seeker after 
truth, and I fear that, owing to the weaknesses common to hu- 
manity and of which it is reasonable to assume you and I possess 
our share, a public controversy in the form of a debate would 
lead only to heated argument not conducive to a correct under- 
standing of the conditions now existing in the Congo Free State. 
What the Congo Government has always desired and what up to 
this time it has absolutely been denied, has been the opportunity 
to meet and answer specific charges made by a complainant whose 
motives are unquestionably fair and impartial and whose charges 
are based upon the positive knowledge of a correctly informed 
person rather than upon irresponsible information and belief. 

In order to render the proposed debate of any value in the 
interests of truth, it must occur to you, as to any right-minded 
man, that specific charges should be formulated and persons should 
be directly accused of the crimes so idly made against the Congo 
Government. I ask you, therefore, to specify the exact charges 
which are to be the subject of this debate so as to enable me to 
frame an answer. 

In approaching the discussion of this subject, permit me to 
call your attention to the fact that the claim of impeccability is 



51 

not asserted by the government in question. It freely confesses 
that it is a human institution and that at times it may have failed 
to discover and legally punish grave and serious offenses. On the 
other hand, it should be conceded by our opponents that the gov- 
ernment of such a people as inhabit the immense domain known as 
the "Congo Free State" is not without difficulty, and that the 
inhabitants of that region, in common with the other children of 
Adam, are somewhat marked by the trail of the serpent. 

That atrocities were committed by the natives on each other 
in the early life of this State in accordance with tribal customs, 
which acts would now be subject to the penal law of the country, 
may be conceded. These occur even in highly civilized States, and 
it is not to be wondered that they occasionally happen among a 
savage and uncivilized people. 

The Congo Free State contends, and this contention cannot 
be successfully denied, that in the main its government has been 
enlightened and civilized. It has always had an eye single to 
the welfare and prosperity of its people, and wherever these prin- 
ciples have been departed from it has been due to the infirmities 
of the human instruments it has employed, infirmities common to 
all governments and human institutions. 

In conclusion, permit me to say that the most disheartening 
feature of the attempts of the Congo Government to firmly plant 
civilized institutions in this great territory has been the carping 
criticism of some of the organizations whose purpose it was be- 
lieved to be the planting of the seed of Christianity among the 
uncivilized races of the globe. I recall the fact that at the late 
Peace Congress held in Boston, it was with difficulty that one of 
our friends obtained ten minutes' time to reply to an hour's dis- 
cussion presented by the friends of the Honorary Secretary of a 
self-constituted Liverpool association. A disgruntled American 
missionary to whom concessions in the Congo were refused was 
permitted to inveigh against the government without restriction, 
but a respectful hearing was denied those who sought to enlighten 
your Congress with facts and figures. The Resolutions passed 
were not openly given to the members of the Convention to delib- 



52 

erate upon, but were suddenly sprung upon the body, after a 
judicious amount of politics had been done to arrange for their 
passage and to avoid dissent. In fact the conduct of the Peace 
Congress creates the impression that even good men may not al- 
ways be relied upon to act fairly; that they are often inclined to 
confound the denial of the commission of a crime with an ex- 
pression of sympathy for it. Permit me to further say that neither 
you nor I are in a position to speak authoritatively for the United 
States Government, and to call your attention to the fact, which 
perhaps you have lost sight of, that the government of the Congo 
is an independent sovereignty, having absolute control, in common 
with all governments, over its own internal affairs, and that it is 
responsible only to its own subjects and to the law of nations for 
any infractions it may commit. 

I am leaving for California immediately, where my legal 
engagements will require my attention until the latter part of 
December, at which time, if proper issues are framed and it is 
desirable in the interests of truth, I may arrange to meet you in 
a public debate. I am. 

Respectfully, 
HENRY I. KOWALSKY. 

P.S. — If this is to your satisfaction, you can give copies to 
Washington Post and Star and also Associated Press. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

020 272 667 7 



